The Dark Part of Me (20 page)

Someone giggled.

I spun around, tugging down my dress. Hollie was lying sideways on the bed in a full-length geisha dress in blue silk. She’d been hiding in the shadows. Her face was painted white and
seemed to hover in mid-air, immaculate as a mask. Her lips were shaped into a perfect cupid’s bow and her hair was pulled into a severe bun, so tight it tugged at the corners of her eyes. She
held an open bottle of Moët by the neck.

‘Hey, I’ve been looking everywhere for you,’ I said, plonking down on the bed. ‘What’re you doing in here?’

‘Waiting for you.’ She took a swig from the bottle and stared at me. ‘You’re late.’

‘Sorry. It’s been a crazy kind of day. First Mum tells me her new squeeze is moving in, then Dad has his annual Christmas breakdown on me. I’ve had enough of both of
them.’

In a blink, Hollie’s face was transformed and she beamed a hundred-watts. ‘You can come and live with me.’ Like she hadn’t tried that one before. She wriggled towards me,
her silky dress sliding against the satin coverlet. ‘We could have so much fun together, don’t you think?’

‘Maybe. What about Danny?’

‘Oh, he won’t mind.’

‘No. Have you seen him?’

‘He’s late, late for a very important date.’ She laughed, rolling around on the bed.

‘You’re pissed.’

‘Am not,’ she slurred.

I grabbed the bottle off her and had a go. There was only a mouthful left.

‘C’mon,’ I said, pushing off the bed. ‘Maybe Danny’s downstairs.’

‘No. You’ve got to dress up, too.’ She ran after me, pulling me back by the waist.

‘But, Hollie, there’s isn’t time. Your guests are waiting.’ I sighed, relenting, ‘Alright, then.’

Hollie shuffled geisha-style across the room. She flung open the mirrored doors to Mrs Bailey’s dressing chamber, a treasure trove of lace and chiffon, satin and organza, hoop skirts and
netted bustles, frills and sparkles and ribboned hems. Mrs Bailey had loved to dress up. She had gear from almost every epoch imaginable – Egyptian, Roman, Medieval, Regency, Elizabethan,
French Renaissance, 1920s Flapper, Sixties Mod. The floor was littered with shoes; brass-buckled pixie and Victorian lace-up boots, platforms, red glittery pumps, crystal-beaded mules, fluffy
kitten heels, black patent knee-highs and silver stilettos. Accessories spewed from boxes lining the shelves above the costumes: tiaras and cowboy hats; pink and purple and lime green boas; wigs of
all shapes and colours; a magic wand with a sequinned star; a life-sized pair of lilac-feathered wings.

Hollie shut the door, killing the noise of the party, and switched on a lamp. It was dark and stuffy, the air thick with the smell of moth-balls and old lace. ‘Here.’ She threw a
dress at me. It was exactly the same as hers – embroidered silk with covered buttons running all the way down the side – except red. I stripped off to my daks and tried to pull the
dress over my head.

‘It won’t fit.’ I looked up. Hollie was checking out my tits. ‘What?’ I crossed my arms over my chest.

‘Nothing.’ She glanced down. ‘Unbutton it first.’

I slipped my arms into the sleeves and pulled the edges together but the material was too slippery.

‘Let me do it,’ Hollie said.

I turned around to face her. In heels, she was the same height as me. She crouched between me and the wall. With light, nimble fingers she started buttoning me up from the hem, pulling the satin
tight, smoothing the fabric over my chest. My heart quickened. Although we’d been dressing up like this since we were kids, it felt different this time.

‘Now your face.’ Hollie smeared white goo all over my cheeks and painted on lips. She brushed my hair and pinned it up with bobby pins and chopsticks, which dug into my scalp. When
she’d finished, she stood back with a strange little smile. She bowed, her dainty hands pressed together, and said, ‘You look beautiful.’ She held a hand-mirror up to me. I looked
like a total freak but I nodded and bowed.

Hollie dragged me back into the bedroom and dived on the bed. She rolled onto her side, her head propped against the fluffy cushions, her body rocking with the gentle motion of the waterbed.

‘I saw you,’ she said, coyly.

‘When?’ I was perched at the foot of the bed.

‘Before. You were doing this.’ Laughing, Hollie ran a hand down the front of her flat chest. ‘You looked sexy.’ She slid down against the pillows, shimmying her dress up
her thighs.

‘I wasn’t doing anything.’ I crossed over to the window and looked down at the party, which had degenerated into a full-on backyard piss-up. Boxes of Domino’s pizza and
Big Rooster chicken were being passed around. The men had ditched their jackets and bowties.
Madame Butterfly
had been swapped for
Abba’s Greatest Hits
and the women were
jigging around barefoot on the grass to ‘Mamma Mia’.

‘Pack of bevans,’ I said. ‘They’ll be pissing in the fishpond next.’ I turned to Hollie. ‘We’d better get down there.’ She was kneeling on the
waterbed. As the surface dipped and bobbed, she swayed from side to side, her dress ruched so high I could see the white crotch of her knickers showing through her pantyhose. She beckoned to
me.

‘Come here.’ She stood up shakily, her dress bunched around her waist. ‘I want to tell you a secret.’ She lost her balance and lurched for the wall. ‘A secret about
Danny and me.’ She started undoing her buttons, popping them open one by one. Her bodice undone to the waist, she slipped her arms out of the sleeves and pulled the dress down over her hips.
The skin on her stomach and her chest was as white as her geisha-ed face and she was the skinniest I’d ever seen her. She stepped out of the crumpled dress and kicked it across the room
towards me.

‘Kiss me,’ she purred, flinging herself backwards onto the bed. ‘Kiss me like we’re lovers. Kiss me on my dead mum’s bed.’ She sighed theatrically and closed
her eyes.

I stood, watching her wriggle and squirm on the satin, her back arched like a vixen. It was just like all the other times, except this Hollie was more confident, more alluring, and the change in
her was exhilarating. For a moment, it caught me off guard but then we’d been playing this game since we were ten years old. I climbed onto the bed and crawled towards her head. She sank
back, a faint smile curling her lips. I sat up on my heels next to her head. Her face was porcelain perfect, like I could have crushed it in my hands. I reached out and stroked her cheek. White
powder came off on my fingers. With her eyes still closed, she held out her hand. I pressed my lips to her palm, then all the way up her arm, leaving a red-lipstick trail, like bites on her skin.
She stretched and sighed, tossing her head from side to side on the pillow like Cathy in her death fever.

‘Hollie. Look at me,’ I said.

Her eyes flashed open. I leant in and pashed her. She clasped my face in her hands and she looked so serious that I laughed and tipped sideways onto the bed. Lying back, I stared at the ceiling,
which was littered in glow-in-the-dark stars I’d never noticed before. There was the Southern Cross and the Saucepan and the Milky Way.

‘Rosie?’ Hollie sat up on one elbow and looked at me, her eyes crazy-bright. Something cold brushed against my stomach. I jerked up. My skirt was up around my hips and Hollie’s
fingers were hooked under the waistband of my undies.

‘What are you doing?’ My heart raced and I felt breathless. Hollie stared at me, all white face and smudged red lips.

‘I want to touch you,’ she said, evenly. ‘Please. Let me.’ She tried to push me down by the shoulders, but horrified, I shot off the bed. The faint sound of breaking
glass came from downstairs. A cheer went up. A chorus of men shouting, ‘Taxi!’ followed by raucous laughter.

‘I’ve got to go,’ I said, sharply.

‘Where?’ She came after me.

‘Out.’ I decided, in that moment, to go to the rave after all.

‘You can’t leave me!’ she screamed, grabbing me by the chopsticks in my hair and pulling me back towards the bed.

‘Let go. You’re hurting me.’ She was acting like a total psycho.

‘I won’t let you leave me.’ She tugged hard at my hair but I bit her on the arm. She cried out as I ran towards the door.

‘Where are you going?’ she demanded.

‘To a rave.’

‘With him,’ she spat.

‘Maybe.’

Her eyes shone hot with outrage and confusion, her lips twisted and furrowed like a kabuki mask.

‘What the fuck’s wrong with you, Hollie?’ I stood in the doorway, glaring at her.

‘Just go!’ she screamed.

‘Fine,’ I said, and walked out, slamming the door behind me.

Downstairs, the party had deteriorated into further bogan chaos.
Midnight Oil
was on the stereo and men were head-banging or playing air guitar on the deck, singing tunelessly into
empty beer cans. Two women sat big-bottomed on the jade sculpture, shovelling great slabs of chocolate gateau into their gobs. The waiters had shed their kimonos and were splashing about the
fishpond in their undies. Danny wasn’t anywhere. As I pushed through the crowd, I was relieved to be getting away from the party and from Hollie. It was just like her to take things too far.
Sure, she was drunk but she’d never been like that with me before and it felt strange. We’d crossed some kind of line. The way she’d looked at me, the way she’d slipped her
fingers inside my knickers, it wasn’t just our usual fantasy act. It was like she was serious

I jogged down the drive, as best as I could in the geisha get-up, towards my car. The party hubbub faded to a muted hum, drowned out by the crickets pulsing around me like a force field. There
was a full moon and the track up the side of Mount Coot-tha shone luminescent-white as a fresh scar. Bats swooped low over my head, blotting out the night sky. The bush was black, faceless,
throbbing, as I hurried across the cul-de-sac. Eager to be inside the car, I fumbled and dropped my keys in the darkness and, as I bent down to pick them up, something hard and sharp pressed
against my back. My heart turned cold. There was a foul stench and the touch of hot breath on my neck. I didn’t dare look around and my throat went too dry to scream.

‘Where you going?’ There was something familiar about the gruff male voice but I couldn’t place it.

‘What do you want?’ I said, trembling.

‘Turn around.’ He pulled the blade away from my back. I spun around and gasped. Drenched in moonlight was a tall, dark-skinned man. His hair was black and matted with dirt. His teeth
shone bone white. He was naked with orange and white markings all over his chest and arms. At his side, he carried a long thin stick, at one end the sharp point I’d felt against my back. The
carcass of a small animal was draped over his left shoulder. Apart from his nose, which was thin and narrow, he looked like an aborigine.

‘Me, Danny-Dilly.’ He took a step backwards and lunged at me with the spear.

‘Danny?’

‘You, Rosie-Maroo,’ he said.

‘Fucking hell.’ I tried to wrench the spear from his grip but he was too strong. ‘You scared the crap out of me. Where the hell have you been? Hollie’s going
nuts.’

‘Me hunting,’ he said, his face stern, his black eyes glinting like mica. ‘You roast yams.’

‘Stop talking like that,’ I said, checking him over. ‘You’re filthy. You mustn’t have eaten for days.’ He was so skinny that each time he breathed it looked
as though ribs would poke right through his mud-caked skin. ‘Go inside and have a shower. Not through the backyard or you’ll freak everyone out.’ I wagged my finger at him.
‘And get rid of that dead animal. It stinks.’ I slid inside the car and slammed the door, but he just stood there, on one leg, leaning against his spear-stick. I wound down the window.
‘Go on. Get. I’m already late.’

In one swift movement, he stuck his head inside the car. The white teeth and the bulging eye-whites in that big dark head of his were frightening and I had to keep reminding myself it was only
Danny.

‘Where are you going?’ This time he spoke normally.

‘To a rave in the Valley. Now pack it in, Danny. Get that mud off you, then go see your sister.’ I revved the car but still he wouldn’t budge.

‘Who are you going with?’ he persisted.

‘None of your business.’ I placed my palm against his filthy forehead and pushed his head out of the car. Releasing the handbrake, I rolled the car backwards down the hill. For a
while he jogged beside me with his spear, shouting out all sort of bullshit about death and evil spirits and bloody revenge. I switched the radio on for some hardcore to drown him out. At the
bottom of the hill, I did a slick three-point turn and looked back up the road, but he’d disappeared. I called Trish to tell her I was coming after all and she screamed down the mobile:

‘We’re gonna rave our tits off, Rosebud, rave our tits right fucking off!’

When I got to Trish’s, we snorted some whiz and she said I looked real sexy in my geisha-girl gear. She told me to leave my makeup on for effect and, with a pair of
kitchen scissors, she hacked a metre or more off the bottom of my dress until it was so short you could see my undies when I bent over. Trish was dressed like the devil with her hair dyed
traffic-light red and gelled into horns on top of her head. Her face sparkled with red glitter and she wore red PVC fuck-me boots that reached mid-thigh. In her satin hot pants and sequinned
bra-top, she could have been a trannie. There was not a skerrick of fat on her tummy, and her tits, tight and firm as tennis balls, were more pec than boob.